Queer Musicians You Should Be Listening To Right Now

Queer representation has come a long way within the music industry. Whereas the early 2000’s found us lovingly scratching our copies of The Con, Tegan and Sara’s iconic lesbian heartbreak album, 2020 is saturated with noteworthy artists who are changing the music industry and creating from the LGBTQ experience. While some are dazzling in the mainstream and others are quietly on the rise, their music gives voice and visibility to the queer community at large, which is something to celebrate given that the majority of what we hear on the radio relates to heterosexual experiences and relationships.

To recognize and celebrate the talented artists who are courageously speaking about their queerness through their music and in the public eye, we put together a list of some of our favorites for you. And because this is the list we wished someone would have made us when we were young, we’re gifting you with a CQ playlist with some of our most listened to songs from these artists!

1. St. Vincent

St. Vincent. (RollingStone.com)

Post-modern rockstar, genius composer, two-time grammy award winning St. Vincent is probably already on your radar—if not for the sheer brilliance of her musical prowess and everything she touches turning to pure platinum, then for the sake of Annie Clark being the queer, latex-glad goddess of our generation. St. Vincent’s sound has evolved tremendously from her obscure and jazzy debut album, Marry Me, in 2007. Her latest release, Masseduction, is complex and contemporary with a pulsing, polished pop sound. She’s truly a generational talent, the kind of old school rock star you wanted to be when you were a kid.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2014, Annie Clark responded to questions about her sexuality by stating, “I believe in gender fluidity and sexual fluidity. I don’t really identify as anything. I think you can fall in love with anybody. I don’t have anything to hide, but I’d rather the emphasis be on music.” We’ll follow your lead and think of the music first, Annie, but it’s undeniably cool to have a bonafide queer working the biggest and brightest red-carpets.

Considering her remarkable musical ingenuity and unique talent for contrasting smooth, sweet melodies with harsh guitar pairings, it’s not hard to emphasize just how distinctive and original the music of St. Vincent is.

2. Janelle Monae

Janelle Monae (Simone Joyner/Getty/WireImage)

ArchAndroid Janelle Monae is easily one of the most celebrated artists in the LGBTQ community. With her fresh and futuristic sound, lush synth-heavy beats, and rhythmic guitar riffs, her 2018 album Dirty Computer is an absolute revelation. It’s an album of heart and grit and soul—a work of art that glorifies the voice of the marginalized while celebrating the magic of female power, blackness, and queerness.

Janelle is an artist who centers the core of everything she does around personal and political freedom. She brings visibility to the queer community on platforms as large as the Oscar’s stage and radically speaks her truth without fear. In her textbook empowering fashion, Janelle said in an interview with Rolling Stone, “Being a queer black woman in America, someone who has been in relationships with both men and women – I consider myself to be a free–ss motherf-cker.”

3. Thao and the Get Down Stay Down

Thao and the Get Down Stay Down (Scott Newton For KLRU)

Unless you know of another artist who can masterfully marry the sounds of funk, neo-soul, and folk rock together in perfect harmony, you’ve never heard of another artist like Thao Nguyen before. One of the most gifted lyricists on this list, Thao’s trademark is translating deeply personal experiences about relationships, womanhood, and being the daughter of an immigrant into songs that both emotionally move and physically groove. You do get down and STAY DOWN with Thao.

Prior to announcing her upcoming album, Temple, to be released in May of this year, Thao confessed that she has been spending time out of the limelight for personal time to tour solo and marry her girlfriend. On addressing her courageous decision to come out to her family and bring her queer identity to the forefront of her music, Thao said in a recent press statement, “I have divided myself into so many selves. I am nervous, but hopeful that in belonging to myself, I can still belong to my family, and my Vietnamese community, especially the elders. I believe that shame has made my work more general, when I’ve always wanted to be specific. This record is about me finally being specific. If you listen to my music, I want you to know who you are dealing with.” She ended the announcement of Temple in a message to her fans with an empowering, “Bury the burden, baby.”

4. Tune-Yards

Tune-Yards (Aleš Rosa)

Powerhouse percussionist Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards has been serving up a fresh, avant-garde sound since 2009. She draws heavily from musical influences like afrobeat, haitian music, and 80’s pop while refreshingly acknowledging that these sounds are not her own—rather, they come from communities of color and queer communities. Rhythmically robust and collectively confident, Tune-Yards’ sound is so dynamically unique that they have been featured on the tracks of artists like Thao + Mirah and even scored the award-winning 2018 film, Sorry To Bother You.

In an interview about gender stereotypes within the music industry, Garbus says, “I don’t feel like the most feminine woman ever and I often identify with male characteristics and feel, you know, like queer often speaks to me more than just straight, heterosexual woman speaks to me. I retain the right to love and sleep with and marry whoever I want.”

5. TORRES

TORRES (David LaMason)

Eclectic and provocative, abstract and avant-garde, TORRES is an artist who is known for creating a sonic sound with modular instruments, synthesizers, and shredding guitar riffs. By drawing on a diverse spectrum of influences like St. Vincent, Enya, and Kurt Cobain and adding her own artistic flair, front woman Mackenzie Scott has carved out a buzz worthy niche all her own.

On making music that subverts traditional gender stereotypes, Scott says, “For me, “Righteous Woman” meant literally occupying the space that I—and most women I know, or anybody who’s been marginalized—had been pushed out of. I wanted to write songs that made those people feel like they had every right to take up space, physically or otherwise.” As queer women we know all too well the discomfort minimizing our space, so a big thank you to TORRES for shining the spotlight on this issue.

6. Japanese Breakfast

Japanese Breakfast (Jay Breitling / Flickr)

Japanese Breakfast has gifted the earth with their ethereal and atmospheric album, Soft Sounds From Another Planet. Lead by front-woman, guitarist and songwriter Michelle Zauner, the album is characterized by a combination of deliciously engaging experimental pop and lots of swirling sonic reverb.

Beyond Japanese Breakfast creating one of the best albums I’ve heard in the past decade and Zauner being the most lovable person imaginable, she’s also been dubbed the queen of bisexual lighting for her empowering video of “Boyish” (If you’re unfamiliar with bisexual lighting—yes, this is a thing, and here is a similar aesthetic in Janelle Monae’s “Make Me Feel” video for your newfound arsenal). Zauner also tweeted during Pride month in 2017, “Fun fact: “Everybody Wants To Love You” was written about my relationship with a woman who has no idea I wrote it for her.” Could be me, y’all. Could be me.

7. Jay Som

Jay Som (Nick Alonzo for WRBB)

Queer Filipino-American Melina Duterte is the voice behind Jay Som, a low-fi indie band who has got the catchy hook of all your shoegaze dreams. In her albums rich with the trademark intimacy of the bedroom-pop genre, Jay Som uses her multi-instrumental prowess to create sounds that range from fuzzy guitar distortions, crisp vocal harmonies, and occasionally even jazzy trumpets. She’s toured with Mitski and Japanese Breakfast, who she describes as major influences for her music in what I describe as the literal concert of my dreams.

Duterte’s inspiration behind Jay Som was creating a project that focuses on the lives of marginalized people, including people of color and the queer community. “As a female-identified musician and a queer person, you have people constantly telling you the world isn’t made for you,” she says. “I think this is a very sensitive time where we should be thinking about people who don’t have as many opportunities as the typical white indie band.” 

8. SASAMI

SASAMI (Jessica Bartolini)

Sasami Ashworth, formerly of indie garage-rock Cherry Glazerr, arrived on the scene with her self-titled solo record in 2019. Self-produced by Sasami, the record began as a series of demos recorded on her iPad and artfully evolved into a rich and complex sound with the quiet intimacy of bedroom-pop. Soothing shoegaze meets a twinge of grunge in an impressive debut.

Addressing her fans during Pride month in 2019, Sasami opened up about her sexuality stating, “I identify as a queer person and growing up in a community that was not welcoming of queerness, especially as an Asian woman, made it really difficult to come to terms with my identity in general. So I’m just saying…if you’re a young queer Asian woman you’re not alone.”

9. Big Thief

Big Thief (Wikimedia Commons)

It’s no secret as to why Adrianne Lenker’s songwriting has been likened to the poetry of Sappho. Pick any song written by Big Thief’s front-woman, and you’ll quickly pine for the artful, achingly poetic thread that runs through every song on any given record. Masterpiece and Capacity, released in 2016 and 2017 respectively, showcase the band’s exploratory folk-rock sound.

Just as Big Thief finds an ever-shifting duality between dark themes and light, airy melodies, Lenker embraces a similar personal fluidity. “I have a lot of that in myself. I think I am both man and woman, and neither. I listen to the heartbeat of the pulse of the source of the universe.”

Speaking of the pulse of the universe, there are few things more precious in our world than two musicians who fall in love and make music together. If you haven’t already, take to Lenker’s instagram for photos and collaborations with her partner Indigo Sparke.

10. Adult Mom

Adult Mom (Edwina Hay)

Adult Mom, the working project of Steph Knipe, pairs low-fi sounds with elements of folk and power pop. Their 2015 album Momentary Lapse of Happily” is a record written about the queer experience in which Knipe finds catharsis in the deeply intimate and sometimes humorous lyrics.

Knipe spoke out in an interview with Stereogum about the harmfulness of pigeon-holing and gatekeeping folks who identify as queer. They stated, “There are a lot of people that have these lines of what you’re supposed to be as a queer person, which I always thought was crazy. That’s the point of queer — that it’s fluid and confusing and can be used as an identifier." We feel the same way—we all win when we stop gate-keeping others in the community.

11. Hurray For The Riff Raff

Hurray for the Riff Raff (Rich Fury/Associated Press)

Singer, guitarist and songwriter Alynda Segarra of Hurray For The Riff Raff knows how to sing the folky blues and keep a mean, toe-tapping beat. The band’s 2017 album, The Navigator, is filled with the about Segarra’s experience as a runaway crossing rivers, sneaking under stairwells and hopping freight trains across the country—the makings of any great folk rock album.

Much of Hurray For The Riff Raff’s music is rooted in Segarra’s experience of being a queer, Puerto Rican woman living underneath the discrimination administration of Trump’s White House. But rather than shy away in fear, Segarra embraces her opportunity to marry her music with a voice for the marginalized and powerful political activism. When asked about the underlying message behind the album title, The Navigator, Segarra shared in an interview with Nylon, “For me, that’s been my inner guide or my intuition, but it also had to do with navigating identities and feeling like you live in the intersections of a lot of identities, like being Puerto Rican, being a woman, being queer, and also being from the Bronx.” Intersectionality in our playlists? We can’t get enough.

12. Clairo

Clairo (Hailey Collins)

After a homemade music video she self-produced for her song“Pretty Girl” received 36 million views on Youtube in record time, Clairo became an instant indie icon. From there, she recorded her 2018 album, Diary 001, blending together elements of low-fi and electro pop. Claire Cottrill’s success continued into a studio-produced sophomore album, Immunity, in 2019, where she was joined by Danielle Haim for a pairing of signature melodic drum arrangements.

When interviewed by Pride on songwriting for Immunity, Clairo stated, “I think the main thing I wanted to come across with those songs is that, they’re about women, they’re for women, or for the gay experience, and instead of it being this emotional sad thing that you’re talking about, that you’re going through—of course it’s a difficult thing to go through, of course it’s so hard to come to that realization, but I also think that it’s something that should be celebrated, that is a happy time. I don’t hear enough happy, danc-y songs that are meant for girls who like girls. I just wanted a couple songs that were undeniably pop, fun, dance songs that listeners can know that that song was meant for them.”

13. Snail Mail

Snail Mail (Dafydd Owen Photography)

Few can boast being signed onto a major record label like Matador (home of Interpol, Queens of the Stone Age, and Kurt Vile to name a few big hitters) without the label ever hearing your music, but that’s exactly what happened to front-woman of Snail Mail, Lindsey Jordan. What’s even more impressive is that she was just a teenager at the time that her lush, indie rock songs started to catch the public eye.

While discussing the growth from her 2016 album Habit to her newest album Lush in 2018, Jordan stated to Interview Magazine, “I’m openly gay at this point, and I don’t think it really comes into play with how we identity as a band. But it definitely does with how I identify as a person, and I didn’t really hold back at all on this record, expressing how that’s has changed my life.”

14. Courtney Barnett

Courtney Barnett (RMV/REX Shutterstock)

Grammy-nominated Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett has mastered a genre that’s a little bit rock, a little 60’s psychedelic, and a lot of grunge. Queen of a good driving rhythm section and stream-of-consciousness-style lyricism, Courtney Barnett’s sound is edgy, easy, and free.

When asked to comment on her sexuality, Barnett says “My general rule is to take people as they come. It's about connection, and a lot of that is beyond sexuality, gender or whatever. I don't really care that much. But you know, I'd say I'm definitely – and severely – more in the queer area.”

15. Phoebe Bridgers

Phoebe Bridgers (Andrew Benge/Redferns)

Phoebe Bridgers entered the collective conversation with her 2017 album, Stranger In the Alps. Her debut record, praised for its hauntingly beautiful melodies paired with piercing emotional honesty, instantly propelled her to top of the Los Angeles indie music scene. Folky and rhythmic, easygoing and seriously catchy, Bridgers’ music is sure to attract an even larger spotlight in years to come.

Since the release of Stranger in the Alps, Phoebe has formed a folk-rock trio ironically called Boygenius with fellow queer singer-songwriters Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker. In a very personal and very relatable interview, Bridgers discusses how shame around her bisexuality influenced her childhood and music. Now out of her teenage years and openly and proudly bisexual, Bridgers’ latest very queer collaboration with Matt Healy of The 1975 tells the story of her falling in love with the girl next door.

16. Lucy Dacus

Lucy Dacus (Photo by David A. Smith/DSmithScenes)

Lucy Dacus knows her way around a guitar. Though making music started for her as just a school project, she has since blossomed into a staple indie rock artist with records like No Burden in 2016 and her latest record, Historian in 2018. Dacus accompanies swelling song arrangements and bold bass-lines with confessional, conversational vocals.

Dacus came out during Pride month in 2018, tweeting “This is the first Pride Month I've entered without being confused or in denial about my sexuality. It's hard recognizing your queerness when you're in a straight relationship. But hey, I'm a lil bit gay sometimes, happy to be here.” Happy to have you, Lucy.

17. Girl In Red

Girl In Red (Patrick Gunning)

Marie Ulven, also known as Girl In Red, has self-produced her bingeworthy blend of low-fi and pop music straight from her bedroom in Norway. She received a rapidly growing fan base on sites like Soundcloud, Youtube, and Bandcamp and has since released records and toured the world.

Though Ulven’s music has resonated on its own with fans of similar artists such as Clairo and Snail Mail, she is vocal about her true passion for connecting and telling queer stories. In an interview with NME, she stated, “I feel like there are more artists like this now. When I was ‘a kid’, which wasn’t that long ago, I didn’t really have any queer icons to look up to. Now there’s like Hayley Kiyoko, King Princess, Snail Mail and all of these queer kids making great music. I think that’s awesome. It’s what we need. We need more queer representation in music and art.” We couldn’t agree more about just how important queer visibility in music really is.

Check out our playlist of CQ’s favorite songs from these artists below:

We’d love to know your favorite queer artists! Drop us a comment to tell us who you’re listening to.